Captain Ahab

plural Captain Ahabs

1. A monomaniacal person; one who is consumed by a desire beyond all reason to achieve a particular goal (a white whale).

   "Do you remember saying that?" Ben nods up at the wall. "Telling Lia, 'You are on track to be the Captain Ahab of the idealized al pastor taco'?"

   2022, Lyndsay Faye, The King of Infinite Space, Penguin Publishing Group, page 74

   2 more examples

   THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK GEORGES BORCHARDT, Lenore Riegel, Marie Pantojan, Dave Cole, and also Robert Weil, the Captain Ahab of publishing, in his continual search for the blinding white whale of perfection.

   2019, Jerome Charyn, The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt and His Times, Liveright

   Be the Captain Ahab of vision, mission and values. A group is better able to avoid being diverted or tossed around by the winds of change and public policy fashions if it is clear and agreed on its vision (the long-term difference we want to see in society), mission (our particular contribution to that change) and values (how we do things, and what we would never do).

   2017, Brian McGrath, Rhonda Phillips, Sue Kenny, editor, The Routledge Handbook of Community Development: Perspectives from Around the Globe, Taylor & Francis